21 Nov 2018

There were a few areas in which the recently delivered State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) offers hope for the Shoshong constituency, Assistant Minister for Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development Mr Phillip Makgalemele has said.

Offering his contribution to the SONA debate in Parliament on November 20, Mr Makgalemele praised President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi for his recent address to the nation, which he said brought forward new ideas and offered his Shoshong constituents hope that some of their developmental challenges would be addressed.

“The President gave a broad speech, and among other things, he spoke of developing a strategy to combat the effects of drought, which is pleasing to us as a drought prone constituency.

Also, the president has made numerous trips abroad, and these also give us hope. 

For example the President recently secured funding for projects such as roads while in China. 

Our hope is that roads such as the Dibete-Poloka, Mokgenene-Otse and Mosolotshane-Moralane could be among those constructed,” Mr Makgalemele said.

The Shoshong legislator however complained that having a centralised government structure could be one of the areas that  obstruct development programmes from reaching some of the rural parts of the country, including those in his constituency.

“Decentralisation is important to service delivery, but in recent years we have seen some institutions being taken over from local government to central government.

It would be of great benefit for delivery if these institutions were returned to local government. 

Also, we have long been promised a Shoshong sub-district, but this has not yet materialised,” Mr Makgalemele said.

He also said tribal administration offices were in a poor state compared to other central and local government offices, despite the kgotla being the cornerstone of the country’s traditional governance.

“Our nation was built through the kgotla system, so it is disheartening to note the poor state of the tribal administration offices. 

For example Bonwapitse kgotla in my constituency is in a poor state.

 I have spoken to people before who wondered why land board offices for example are always in a better condition and better resourced than the kgotla.

We need to work on raising the profile of the kgotla,” Mr Makgalemele said.

Stressing the need for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to flourish in order to assist the government in advocating for society members, Mr Makgalemele said he had been against the formation of the NGO Council by the government, since the NGOs themselves had organised themselves into the Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO).

He said the government should have rather assisted BOCONGO to be better resourced and capacitated as an institution best placed to understand the needs of civil society since it was run by the NGOs themselves.

Additionally, Mr Makgalemele called for the acceleration of the rural electrification programme, and for students’ dormitories at Kalamare Junior Secondary School to be expanded. ENDS